“Yes, but there is somewhere else I need to be. Some place more important.”
“Where?”
“With you.” His gaze pleaded with hers. “I want to spend Christmas with you.”
“Wes, I…” She inhaled deeply. “I’ve been worried about you. If this is your way of saying you’re okay, great, but you hurt me.”
“Paige, I—”
“Let me finish.”
He nodded.
She took another breath. “Yesterday, I realized you were correct. I haven’t been living fully in the present. I’ve been putting things off, waiting for some imagined future when my dreams have come true. I keep saying ‘until then’ or ‘someday’ instead of going after what I want. No more. I won’t wait any longer.”
“Good, because that’s why I’m here.” He stood. “To go after what I want, but…”
Paige didn’t want to ask, but she couldn’t stop herself. “What?”
“I’ve been afraid.” His voice was full of regret. “That’s kept me from living in the present, too.”
“What are you afraid of?”
His Adam’s apple bobbed. “I worry the cancer will come back.”
That was a real fear to patients and their families. “We spoke about this at your last appointment.”
A guilty expression crossed his face. “I might have told you I was handling it better than I was.”
Concern ratcheted. “Are you still seeing the therapist?”
He nodded. “The appointments are helping, but if I get tired or I catch a cold and a lymph node swells or a hundred other little things, I think it’s back. I’m not sure if I’m making up or exaggerating symptoms or if something is real. It’s…”
“Exhausting?”
“And paralyzing.”
She wanted to soothe his fears. “You can’t help how you feel. The fear of a recurrence is real. I wish it wasn’t. Could the cancer return? Yes. Will it? I hope not because no one wants to go through that again. But you are healthy now. Try to focus on that instead.”
“I’ve been trying.” His gaze clouded. “But I don’t want to be a burden if I get sick again.”
Her heart hurt for him. “You have never been a burden, Wes. Taking care of someone is a way to show love and compassion and kindness. Your friends stepped up because they love you. That much is clear from the time I spent with them. You are all a family. And you’re the big brother, the patriarch. They look up to you.”
“I don’t know why. I’ve torn companies apart without a second thought for their employees. I made decisions that affected thousands of lives without considering the consequences.”
“That’s why you’re so hard on yourself?”
He nodded.
“You may have been that guy once, a man who only cared about the bottom line, but you’re not him now. He never would have donated twenty-five million to the cancer center. He wouldn’t have gone to a toy store to pick out gifts for a benefit dinner and grabbed three extra requests from the giving tree. He wouldn’t have gone out with his foundation or done so many other things big and small.”
Wes stared at her with an unreadable expression in his eyes.
“You can’t change the past,” she continued. “But you’re not doing what you did anymore.”
“I’m not. I resigned as CEO. I’m now the chairman.”
She had no idea what the different roles meant, but… “You sound happy about the change.”
“I am. It was Henry’s idea.” Wes smiled. “I’ve been trying to be a better man, but once you came into my life, I wanted—want—to be someone you respect.”
“You already are, Wes.”
“There’s something else.” He cut the distance between them with purposeful steps. “I lied about Annabelle. She didn’t break up with me. I broke up with her. I didn’t believe she loved me even though she wanted to get married. I thought she was only after my money. That she could never love me with the cancer. But worse, I let everyone think she broke up with me. I had the perfect chance to apologize when we were in Hood Hamlet, but I couldn’t do it.”
His anguish clawed at Paige’s heart. “It’s never too late to say you’re sorry.”
“I told the guys. And then we flew to Seattle on Sunday night,” he admitted. “I finally apologized to Annabelle.”
“How did she take it?”
“Better than I thought she would.” His expression softened. “Annabelle is married and pregnant with their first child—a boy. She was as shocked to see me in Hood Hamlet as I was to see her, so she wasn’t sure what to say. Her long parka hid her stomach, and she was wearing gloves so I didn’t see her wedding ring. She forgave me and said what happened turned out for the best. She’s madly in love and happily married. Her future son now has an educational trust that three of us will fund.”
“Telling your friends and seeing her must have been hard to do.”
“I should have never gotten myself in the situation, but a lesson learned.” He scratched under his fake beard. “I’m learning lots of those.”
“It’s called life.”
“Paige.”
“Wes,” she said at the same time.
They laughed.
“You go first,” he urged.
“No, you.”
“Okay.” He sounded slightly winded. “Neither of us has been living in the present. You’ve focused too much on the future. I’ve been stuck in the past. You want to change, and so do I. Let’s work on it together.”
Her heart roared in her ears. “As friends or…?”
“You are my friend, but you’re so much more than that. When all this started, I wanted to make your wishes come true, but you did that for me. Wishes I was too afraid to admit to until I met you.”
Joy overflowed from her heart.
“You made me reassess everything,” he continued. “I have work to do, but I’ll do whatever it takes to be a man you can love.”
Her pulse skittered. “You already are.”
His face lit up. “Really?”
She nodded.
“I want you in my life. Today, tomorrow, forever.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a blue box tied with a white ribbon. “This is for you.”
“I didn’t get you a gift.”
His tender gaze felt like a caress. “Yes, you did.”
Her insides trembled. So did her hands, but she opened the lid. Inside was a crystal heart ornament. “It’s beautiful.”
“My heart belongs to you, but I thought you could hang this on your tree.”
Each one has a story.
So did this ornament. Christmas magic? Yes, she believed.
“Thank you.” She held the box to her heart. “I’ll treasure it always.”
“There’s one more thing I want to give you.” Wes reached into his pocket again, removed another blue box, and kneeled in front of her.
She gasped and covered her mouth with her hands.
“I love you, Dr. Paige Regis. You are an amazing woman who saved my life when I was sick and saved my heart when I was well. We haven’t been together long, but a good friend told me when you know, you know. I know you are the one for me.”
He opened the box and showed her what was inside. A big—the largest she’d ever seen—diamond sparkled.
She lowered her hands, still trembling, from her face.
Wes gazed into her eyes. “Will you do me the honor of being my wife?”
“I love you.” Her heart beat fast. She tried to slow her rapid breathing. But she had a feeling it would take a while. But she didn’t want to leave him hanging. “Yes! Yes, I’ll marry you.”
He slid the ring onto her finger. A perfect fit.
Wes stood, pulled the fake beard below his chin, and kissed her.
“I’ve never kissed Santa before,” she teased.
“There’s always a first time.” He kissed her again. “And a last one. Unless the Santa is me.”
Contentment flowed through he
r, settling around her heart like a well-needed hug. “Thanks for making my Christmas wishes come true.”
He caressed her face. “Thanks for making wishes so they could come true.”
She pressed her lips against his, a kiss full of her love and respect for the man she would marry. “Now what?”
“If you don’t have other plans tonight, I want to introduce my fiancée to my family.” Wes hugged her. “How does that sound?”
“Like a wonderful way to spend our first Christmas together.”
“It will be.” Wes brushed his lips across the top of her head. “But just wait until next year.”
EPILOGUE
New Year’s Eve
The party was in full swing by the time Dash arrived home—three hours late because of a delayed flight from Boston. He should have spent Christmas at home, but Raina had wanted him to meet her family. Nice folks, but now he was unfashionably late to his own New Year’s Eve celebration.
Ignoring the music, conversations, and laughter drifting upstairs, Dash showered in record-fast time to wash away the travel grime and dressed in the jeans and shirt Iris had laid out for him. He didn’t know if Raina had arrived yet, but she would find him. She was like ferrous metal to his magnet.
Downstairs, Dash searched for who he wanted to see most. Well, two people.
Making his way through the crowd, he greeted his friends. A DJ played tunes. People danced. Despite his late arrival, everyone appeared to be enjoying themselves, because Iris had everything under control, as usual. Dash didn’t know what he would do without her.
In front of the living room’s twenty-foot-tall Noble fir Christmas tree, he found who he was looking for. Wes stood with a silly smile on his face, making heart eyes at his fiancée. The weight he’d been carrying around on his shoulders was gone. He appeared ten years younger.
Maybe laughter wasn’t the best medicine—love was. It appeared to have worked miracles with Wes.
His friend falling in love thrilled Dash. He nudged Wes’s arm. “I hear congratulations are in order.”
“Thanks.” Wes hugged him. “Paige saying yes was the perfect Christmas gift.”
Dash raised a brow. “How long did you date?”
“If you count the night we reconnected at Henry’s Christmas party at the children’s hospital, two-and-a-half weeks,” Paige answered.
“Adam and Cambria have you beat. He proposed a week after meeting her. And they married two weeks after that.”
Wes nodded. “I thought Adam was crazy, but when you know…”
“You know,” Dash finished for him.
Wes laughed, wrapping his arm around Paige. “You really do know.”
“Great.” Except what did a person know exactly?
Dash enjoyed being with Raina, more than he had with any other woman he’d dated. They were a good match, sharing similar hobbies, interests, and values. She was everything Dash never thought he would find, but thanks to Hadley Lowell Mortenson, aka The Wife Finder, he was now Raina’s boyfriend. At least that was what she’d called him in front of her family.
Dash wasn’t at the heart eyes stage. Being apart from Raina for days didn’t bother him. Even though marriage came up at her parents’ house, wedded bliss wasn’t on his radar.
Not everyone was like Adam, Kieran, Mason, Blaise, and Wes. Love could take time to develop. That happened with Brett and Laurel Matthews. Maybe that explained why Dash didn’t know if Raina was the “one” for him yet.
The cork popping from a bottle of champagne interrupted Dash’s thoughts. He smiled at Paige. “Let’s see the ring.”
The lovely doctor’s face glowed. She raised her left hand.
Dash whistled. “That’s a humongous diamond.”
“Wes picked it out.” Paige leaned into her fiancé. “But it’s too much.”
Wes kissed the top of her head. “You deserve only the best.”
Her cheeks reddened.
“The two of you look great together.” Dash would have made a toast in their honor except he hadn’t been to the bar yet. “Have you set a wedding date?”
Paige stared at Wes with such affection Dash felt like a third wheel. “We’re in no rush to say ‘I do.’”
“I’m not like the others,” Wes said. “We want to have a long engagement. Paige needs to focus on the cancer center, and I need to work on myself a bit.”
The others had married within weeks of proposing, but Wes had never followed the crowd.
“How long will you wait?” Dash asked.
“No idea,” Wes admitted. “I proposed because I wanted her to know I was in this for the long haul. For forever.”
Dash envied his friend’s certainty. He felt that way about work but never another person, including Raina. Then again, he wasn’t good at socializing or dating, but she didn’t seem to mind when he was too busy and forgot to text or call.
Paige wrapped her arms around Wes. “You made your intention clear, my love.”
Add one more friend to the crazy-in-love column. At least Dash could count on Henry Davenport to be eternally single. The guy dated so many women, he didn’t know the meaning of commitment or, if he did, he avoided it.
“I’m happy for you guys.” Their engagement thrilled Dash. Wes was the backbone of the group. If anyone deserved to fall in love and live happily ever after, he did. “But it looks like I’ll win the bet now.”
“You don’t win until I say the words ‘I do,’” Wes reminded him. “Who knows? You might beat me to the altar.”
A shiver ran along Dash’s spine. “Not going to happen.”
“You caught the garter at Blaise and Hadley’s wedding. That means you should be next if the tradition holds.”
Dash shook his head adamantly. “Still not happening.”
“We’ll see.” Wes smirked.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Dash asked.
“You spent Christmas with Raina’s family in Boston. That’s taking the relationship to another level.”
Dash flinched. “It is?”
“Yes,” Paige and Wes said in unison.
Dash scratched his chin. He’d said yes to the trip because Raina asked. His mom and dad were both going out of town for Christmas, so there was no reason for Dash to be in Portland. But he hoped he hadn’t given Raina the wrong idea that he would be the next one to propose.
“The gears are cranking in Dash’s brain,” Wes explained to Paige. “The lines on his forehead are a dead giveaway along with the way his mouth twists.”
Blaise clapped his hand on Dash’s back. “Nice of you to show up at your own party. We heard your flight was delayed.”
Dash nodded. “I told Raina we should have left yesterday, but she wanted to spend more time with her family.”
“Did you propose on Christmas like Wes did?” Blaise asked.
Say what? The thought hadn’t crossed Dash’s mind. “Nope. And marriage isn’t on my five-year plan.”
“Then make sure you don’t give Raina the wrong idea,” Blaise said.
Wes laughed. “Marry a matchmaker and now you know everything about relationships.”
“Marriage teaches you a lot.” Beaming, Blaise glanced across the room to his wife. “About your partner and family.”
“How was your first Christmas with Hadley?” Paige asked.
“Amazing. Fallon, Audra, and Ryder were there. Lex, Rizzo, and Iris, too.”
Wait. What? Hearing Blaise’s bodyguards had been included in the celebration didn’t surprise Dash, but he hadn’t expected Iris to be there. “Did you hire her to cook Christmas dinner?”
A weird expression formed on Blaise’s face. “Of course not. She helped Hadley and Fallon with the food, but she was there as a guest.”
“A guest?”
Blaise nodded. “We didn’t want her all alone in this big house on Christmas.”
All alone.
As the words reverberated through Dash, his stomach dropped to his feet.
; “You forgot Iris has no family,” Blaise said matter-of-factly with no judgment in his voice.
No one but Dash. He struggled to breathe. He was the worst friend ever. She always spent Christmas with him. On the twenty-fourth, they ate dinner with his dad. On Christmas morning, they went to his mom’s house. In the evening, they exchanged gifts before eating while watching a movie. That had been their tradition for years.
Until Raina.
Dash swallowed around the snowball-sized lump lodged in his throat. “I forgot.”
“That happens when you fall in love,” Paige said.
Love? Was that the reason? Dash had no idea. He’d bought Raina and her family gifts. Well, Iris had purchased, wrapped, and shipped them.
His heartbeat roared in his ears. Dash hadn’t bought Iris a present. No doubt there would be one underneath the tree for him from her. Had he even given her a bonus like he usually did? He didn’t think so.
“Don’t worry about it.” Wes smiled at him. “Iris understands.”
Dash nodded because Iris always understood. Since they met when they were thirteen, she’d forgiven him for doing stupid stuff, but that didn’t make him feel any better.
“Did she have a good Christmas with you guys?” he asked.
“Iris did,” Blaise said without missing a beat. “She spent Christmas Eve at our house so she could be there when Audra and Ryder woke up. Christmas is more fun with kids around.”
“Thanks for taking care of her.” Especially when that was Dash’s job. He wanted to smack himself.
“Anytime, though Henry was the one who looked after her the most while you were away,” Blaise said.
“He’s claimed Iris’s kiss at midnight,” Paige added.
“Henry?” Dash stared at his friends. “As in our Henry? Henry Davenport?”
“The one and the only.” Wes laughed.
Iris was an adult capable of making her own decisions. She could kiss whoever she wanted when the clock struck midnight. Those kisses meant nothing.
Except Henry was a player. The guy could break her heart before January second arrived. Dash didn’t want that to happen.
“I’m going to grab food,” he said, knowing Iris would be in the kitchen. “I’ll talk to you later.”
The Wish Maker (The Billionaires 0f Silicon Forest Book 2) Page 20